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BEIJING (REUTERS) – China has granted conditional approval for general public use of a Covid-19 vaccine developed by state drug maker Sinopharm, an official from the China National Medical Products Administration said at a press conference on Thursday ( December 31).
The approval of the vaccine developed by Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group (CNBG) subsidiary is the first for general public use among a handful of Chinese coronavirus vaccine candidates in various stages of trials.
China could grant conditional approval for vaccines that have yet to complete clinical trials if the vaccine is deemed to be urgently needed to deal with major public health emergencies and its benefits outweigh the risks, said Chen Shifei, an official with the National Administration of Medical Products, in the briefing.
No detailed data on the vaccine’s efficacy has been released, but a CNBG unit in Beijing said Wednesday that its vaccine is 79.34 percent effective in preventing the disease in people according to provisional data.
The approval comes after the United Arab Emirates became the first country earlier this month to release the Sinopharm vaccine to the public.
While China has been slower than several other countries in approving Covid-19 vaccines, it has been vaccinating its citizens for months with three different vaccines that are still undergoing late-stage trials.
China launched an emergency use program in July targeting essential workers and other people at high risk of infection and, by the end of November, had administered 1.5 million doses using at least three different products, two developed by CNBG and one by Sinovac.
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